1. Field of the invention
The present invention, generally, relates to the packaging of electronic devices and, more particularly, to a structural arrangement that admits the use of mixed bonding techniques for affixing electronic devices.
The electronics industry today is growing with ever increasing speed, and the manufacturing technology used in the packaging of its components is advancing now with matching speed. As an example, a single monolithic chip measuring less than one-half of an inch square can store today at least one million bits of information and data, because such a chip can support many electronic circuits. Placing more and more electronic circuits on smaller and smaller chips makes the task of packaging such chips with their modules, increasingly more difficult.
A principal difficulty in attaching a device to a module is due to a mismatch in their respective coefficients of thermal expansion. This mismatch causes fractures, actual breaking and other circuit discontinuities in electrical connections, such as solder joints, during thermal cycling. For example, the coefficient of thermal expansion for a typical chip is in the order of 3 micro inches per inch per degree Centigrade, while the coefficient of thermal expansion for a typical ceramic module is in the order of 7 micro inches per inch per degree Centigrade.
These fractures, breakages and other discontinuities in electrical connections are caused by stresses that develop when there is temperature cycling in the environment. This problem is compounded still further when a device, such as a chip, is affixed rigidly to a module, as they are so often. The prior art reveals many efforts to solve problems that develop due to thermal mismatches.
In the current trend today toward ever smaller packaging of these miniturized and, now, these subminiturized circuits, problems concerning the mismatches in coefficients of thermal expansion are not the only difficulties that have developed. It is often highly desirable to be able to affix a device to a circuit carrier by different bonding techniques, and the making of the carrier very thin and flexible to solve the mismatch problem, has caused the problem of using different bonding techniques to be more acute.
A bonding technology known in the packaging industry as Tape Automated Bonding (or "TAB") is developing rapidly and is a much used technique. It is similar to a technique that is used even more widely by some manufacturers known as Controlled Collapse Chip Connection (called "C-4"), except the organic tape (usually polyimide) is generally thick, and the bonding technique is the thermo compression type.
Thermo compression bonding generally requires a bump on the chip and/or on the flexible circuitry. Pads on the chip typically are aluminum, and therefore, it is desirable to have the bumps on the tape formed of aluminum also. It would be a significant advantage to have a common flexible thin film carrier with bumps such that both bonding techniques can be used to affix a device, such as a chip to the carrier.
2. Description of the prior art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,159,222 to Lebow et al. teaches a method of manufacturing a circuit having a particular circuit line density which, at that time, was a real achievement. The manufacturing process, as taught by this prior patent, is not concerned with thermal mismatches or with providing a thin film carrier structure that will accept mixed bonding technologies to affix devices to the circuit.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,372,804 to Hanabusa et al. discloses a method of forming thicker copper areas on a copper foil using aluminum foil as a temporary carrier. Apparently, it was believed at that time that thick copper areas make stronger land areas in a completed rigid multi-layer printed circuit board.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,495,546 to Nakamura et al. is concerned with providing a flexible circuit board that can be folded and inserted into an opening in another board. The method of producing such a flexible circuit board is completely different from the present invention, as will be understood as the description proceeds.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,543 to Miniet shows a double sided flexible circuit with plated-through holes, one side of which is adapted for affixing devices with leads while the opposite side is adapted for affixing devices without leads. Both the method of making a thin flexible circuit board and the circuit board structure itself, in accordance with the invention, are patentably distinct from that of this Miniet patent, as will appear from the detailed description to follow.
As has been mentioned previously hereinabove, the present-day trend is toward ever thinner, more flexible circuit boards with finer and finer electrically conductive lines to obtain denser and denser circuits within the same space. While the above-described C-4 process is still effective to affix devices and chips to these thiner and more flexible circuit boards, other types of bonding, like the thermo compression bonding process, present difficulties which have defied solution, until the present invention.